Message to Man (September 2018)

drawing by Gukit, Kaya Visotskaya and group 834 at the chitchat

Message to Man, Saint Petersburg, Russia
September 15-22 2018

“Meeting Mike Hoolboom – through films, criticism, or projects he has curated – is encountering sensitive, complex and deeply humanistic thinking about the body, memory, perception, and experiences of interaction. Hoolboom is a Canadian icon of avant-garde cinema who has worked in the visual arts for over 30 years, and during that time, he has developed a complete artistic identity; his artistic, intellectual, pedagogical and research practices overlap with one another and interweave with the circumstances and experiences of his own life.” Maria Shcherbakova

Program 1
Incident Reports 70 minutes 2017

“An episodic love letter to an unseen therapist, Hoolboom’s film is a luminous celebration of humanity, traversing memory, forgetting, image making and gender identity, while touching the heart of what it is to be in the world. It is an essay film that leads us joyfully to an ultimately life affirming conclusion.” Alchemy Film Festival

Program 2
After the American Election: Poetry and Resistance

A suite of seven shorts by Canadian movie artist Mike Hoolboom. Each lyrical essay is also a portrait: of radical gender theorist Paul Preciado, jazz pianist Fats Waller, the Portuguese horse Jacinto, Austrian avant-garde filmmaker Moucle Blackout. History without poetry is just information. Join us for an evening of luxurious seeing and listening, of unusual forms celebrating the light that comes from shadows.

An hour-long presentation about portraiture, how the face is central to cinema, how dominant habit patterns have created new possibilities and difficulties for the cinema of today. Johns Cage and Berger will say a few words. How can we “stay with the troubles”, moving towards our difficult feelings and plugging into them, using this energy source as a ground for our own pictures and sounds, our own lives. Perhaps the cinema of today might begin with a return to our own bodies in order to work alongside our subjects.

Clips and movies will be projected, along with projected words and fantasies.